"Therefore, omit no watchfulness, diligence, care, and effort, in order to 'guard the deposit' of Christ's teaching whose destruction has been planned, as you know, by a great conspiracy." – Pope Pius VII, Diu Satis, May 15, 1800

The Suppression of the Jesuits is a completely undiscussed subject among Catholics in our day. I remember that when Pope Francis was first elected some media commentators rather ridiculously suggested that he, being a Jesuit, should take the name Clement because it was a pope named Clement (Clement XIV) who had suppressed his order way back a long time ago. But other than that I have not heard any discussion of this topic, nor have I read any serious discussion of it in any Catholic history printed during my lifetime.

The Jesuits were reinstated by Pope Pius VII after the fall of Napoleon in 1814 and the matter of their original suppression was largely forgotten and swept under the rug by the tumultuous events of 1789-1815, the growing Liberalism of the 19th century, and the cataclysms of the 20th century, events that were unleashed in large part due to the 18th century suppression of that venerable Order. There were some Jesuits who themselves engaged in a polemic on the topic during the 19th century but by and large it had been forgotten by the turn of the 20th century. So why am I bringing up this bit of ancient and dusty history?

Because it is instructive. It was the first essay of the conspiracy to dismantle the teaching of Jesus Christ when it crawled out of its den during the middle part of the 18th century. It is instructive to the means and tactics which this conspiracy used then and perhaps still does today. And because it was a crucial point for them. The Jesuits of that day had to be destroyed because they were a) highly devout and faithful to their calling b) under a vow of direct obedience to the Holy Father in Rome and were thus his most effective means of acting instantaneously across the Catholic world against any threat against the Church and c) were highly involved in educating the young.

This last point needs to be understood. Education of the young. It has always been the means by which these conspirators who have by their own free will chosen to be enemies of religion, of the human race, and of God Himself transform societies by taking over the function of educating the young whether through formal schools or by other means or by a combination of both. We have seen this run rampant during the 20th and early 21st centuries. The subtle division of children from parents taught in schools combined with the rapacious murder of the parent child relationship and of the institutions of fatherhood and motherhood themselves by the so called ‘popular culture’ which is merely the most open and effective arm of the conspiracy. Oops, did I say that? Did I really just say that all of the nonsense that comes out of the entertainment industry in our own time has in some way been deliberately planted there to wreak destruction on our societies? Yes Virginia I did say that.

The second point also needs to be discussed. The Jesuits needed to be destroyed because they were a transnational religious order who were bound by a direct vow of obedience to the pope. They were known as the “pope’s bodyguard.” And make no mistake the pope was the ultimate target of these conspirators. The Pope who reigned during that time, Clement XIII, mentioned this several times in his personal letters during the 1760s that the Pope was their ultimate target because he was the guarantor of right religion and if the pope was weakened then so was religion.

So you see there is a perverse logic to their actions. They knew what they were about and they were consistent in their actions. But how did they do it? It started slowly and they moved from country to country starting first in Portugal in the late 1750s, then in France in the early 1760s, and followed by the sudden expulsion from Spain in 1767, then the states of Italy, finally culminating in Pope Clement XIV being bullied into suppressing the entire order in 1773. Each of these countries, France most of all, was to suffer terribly as a consequence of this move but how did it happen?

By their usual process of conspiracy and deceit. I will in the coming posts explore the situation in each country starting with Portugal where the mayhem began. Please pray three Hail Marys in honor of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.